Definition of Google AMP

What is Google AMP?

AMP, which stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages, is an online publication format created by Google to speed up the display of pages on mobile devices.

Improving the user experience on Google is the ultimate goal of this project, which was launched in 2016 and now enriches results pages more than the traditional format does.

Google AMP’s effectiveness is based on a number of technical optimizations

With AMP-optimised pages, a website can be explored much more quickly by Internet users who click on the pages corresponding to the results of their queries on Google. In order to generate the increase in page display speed from an average of 22 seconds for a non-AMP page to 0.7 seconds for an AMP page, Google has put in place a multitude of rules and restrictions and implemented a number of optimizations.

The AMP page bypasses JavaScript elements without going so far as to exclude them, thereby preventing any deterioration in performance. To reduce the loading of multimedia resources, the HTML codes of the pages include indications of the size and layout of these resources. An AMP-optimised page continues to load independently of the loading of external content permitted by iframe tags.

CSS styles are standardized, and only inline styles are authorized. Only GPU-accelerated animations and transitions are loaded. Images and adverts are only downloaded if the user pretends to want to access them. A prediction mode is activated to suggest in advance pages likely to be of interest to the user. It should be noted that AMP is not a positioning factor for a site, but facilitates navigation.

AMP also means enriched pages that can be accessed via the Google AMP Cache URL

AMP does more than speed up the availability of pages on smartphones and tablets. It highlights pages more than the traditional format does. It enriches them with new elements.

By including structured data, an AMP page can offer a top carousel of stories on search results pages, including videos, blog articles and forum threads, for example. AMP can enrich the presentation of a page with similar results that will provide web users with a choice of content with the same structure. It is also possible to display images, styles and other functionalities in the results. Site owners will find it particularly interesting that their page can be presented by Google AMP with visual stories readable by iOS and Android.

In order to make the most of these rich features quickly, web users need to access the AMP URL.

For a classic URL like https://example.com/amp_document.html, it is in the following AMP format: https://example.com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/example.com/amp_document.html.

This format supports Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Bord and Navigate UR UC in their various versions for mobile and desktop use. If you find the little AMP logo on a search result, you’ll know that the corresponding page is AMP-compatible.